


the longest season

by Aramley



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-26
Updated: 2011-11-26
Packaged: 2017-12-17 22:40:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/872778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aramley/pseuds/Aramley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It's awkward now in ways it never was before, effort where it used to be natural, but the things most worth having have to be worked for.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	the longest season

**Author's Note:**

> Set at the end of the 2011 season. Follows [**no-one's gonna love you more than i do**](http://archiveofourown.org/works/872744).

"Hi," Rafa says, when Novak opens to hotel room door.

"Uh," Novak says, eloquently. "Hi?"

Rafa makes a fidgety, awkward movement. "I can -?"

"Oh," Novak says, stepping aside quickly. "Sure, of course, come in."

Rafa mutters thanks and ducks in, furtively, as though he hasn't just been standing around in the hall for anyone passing to see, as if he had anything to hide. The secrecy is infectious, and Novak glances up and down the empty hall before he shuts the door and, out of unnecessary habit, locks it.

Rafa has his hands in his pockets, which gives him a round-shouldered, awkward-teenager look. "Jelena is not here?"

"She's shopping," Novak says. His back is to the door. "You uh, you want a drink or something?"

"No, thank you," Rafa says, and goes quiet, glancing around the room like he's admiring the bland generic hotel decor, and Novak is officially lost. He and Rafa have spoken a couple of times since the morning Novak woke up hungover and pathetic on Rafa's couch in New York, but much of the intervening time since then on now they've spent on different continents, which left a lot of space to avoid talking about difficult things like _feelings_. They'd practiced together in the company of both their massed teams the second day in London, but this is the first time they've been alone together, and in person it's much harder to ignore the difficult things like _feelings_.

"Are you okay?" Novak asks.

Rafa shrugs, half-smiling. "Been a long season."

Yeah, Novak thinks, it has. A long, season, as difficult in some ways as it's been amazing in others. But things are fine now, amicable, and there's no reason at all for Novak's heart to skip like that when Rafa takes a step forward, bringing him to the edge of what Novak might consider his personal space. When Rafa takes another step, Novak's heart just makes a break for it and climbs up into his throat.

"I don't know," Rafa says, haltingly, "if you still," followed by a jumble that Novak's not really listening to because he's already reaching out reflexively for the nearest thing, which turns out to be the front of Rafa's training jacket, body running ahead of brain and heart beating them both, saying, "I still, I still."

He says it again when he's managed to drag Rafa closer, and later he'll find better ways to say it, but for now it's enough to breathe the senseless words against Rafa's mouth and have Rafa close against him again, finally, _finally_. 

It's awkward now in ways it never was before, effort where it used to be natural, but the things most worth having have to be worked for. Rafa gets an arm around Novak's neck and holds on like he might drown otherwise, and Novak's squeezes him tight in return, heart aching. 

"Was a long season," Rafa says, muffled against Novak's shoulder.

"Yeah," Novak says, tension leeching from his body wherever Rafa's hands come to rest, because it's finally, finally over.


End file.
